So why are we attached?
I am attached to my country because through identification with it I become somebody. I identify myself with my work, and the work becomes important. I am my family, my property; I am attached to them.
The object of attachment offers me the means of escape from my own emptiness… There are escapes at all the levels of our being. You escape through work, another through drink, another through religious ceremonies, another through knowledge, another through God, and still another is addicted to amusement…
All escapes are unintelligent, as they inevitably bring about conflict. To cultivate detachment is another form of escape, of isolation; it is attachment to an abstraction, to an ideal called detachment. The ideal is fictitious, ego-made, and becoming the ideal is an escape from what is.
There is the understanding of what is, an adequate action towards what is, only when the mind is no longer seeking any escape.
The very thinking about what is is an escape from what is. Thinking about the problem is escape from the problem; for thinking is the problem, and the only problem.
The mind, unwilling to be what it is, fearful of what it is, seeks these various escapes; and the way of escape is thought. As long as there is thinking, there must be escapes, attachments, which only strengthen conditioning.
Freedom from conditioning comes with the freedom from thinking.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti, Commentaries On Living Series 2
May we see what remains when we stop running away,
Simeon
Quote of the Week
“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”
— Eckhart Tolle
Learning from Obsessive Thoughts & Behavior
In this segment from an exclusive patrons & members video, I explore how obsessive thoughts and behavior can reveal deeper psychological struggles and why we chase desire and distraction rather than confront life’s deep problems.
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Suggested Reading
"The Way to Love" by Anthony de Mello
In The Way to Love, Anthony de Mello dismantles our illusions about attachment, inviting us to meet life as it is, without escape or fear. His words, both fierce and compassionate, are a guide to discovering peace beyond grasping.
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